News In Brief: Vodafone, Ericsson, Altai, MMV, Opera, Telecom Italia, Asana, Joost

Vodafone has won approval to lift its stake in Vodafone-Essar from 52% to 58%, the Financial Express reported.

Ericsson will drop the Tandberg Television brand on January 25 after it completes its acquisition of the vendor.
 
Wi-Fi vendor Altai Technologies has developed a new integrated base station designed to reduce the strain on 3G networks by offloading traffic onto outdoor Wi-Fi networks. It is being deployed or trialed by all three Chinese carriers.
 
Mobile Money Ventures (MMV) and private software development company CPNI have joined forces to offer a mobile financial services platform for financial institutions.
 
The global mobile marketing and advertising market will grow at a CAGR of 43% to €8.7 billion by 2014, when it will account for 11.7% of all digital ad spend, according to research from Berg Insight.
 
Opera has upgraded its Chinese browser, closing a backdoor which had allowed mainland Chinese users to visit websites blocked by government censors, the BBC reports
 
Vodafone and Huawei have jointly opened an innovation laboratory in Milan, Italy. The Core Network Innovation Centre (CIC) in Milan is equipped with the latest Huawei mobile and core network equipment and technologies in areas such as mobile broadband, IMS and FMC.
 
Telecom Italia and Huawei have launched pre-commercial trials of an LTE mobile network. The trial taking place in Turin is based on 14 new LTE base stations located in the centre of the city and integrated with the existing mobile infrastructure. 
 
Ex-Facebook execs Justin Rosenstein and Dustin Moskovitz have raised US$9 million for their year old business software start-up Asana. Benchmark Capital and Andreessen Horowitz led the funding round.
 
Online ad network the Adconion Media Group has acquired the assets of beleaguered online TV player Joost.  Financial terms were not revealed. Adconion will take on Joost's white label video management strategy, particularly in the area of online video advertising, using Joost.com to showcase clients' "branded entertainment content."